Neville Chamberlain fell ill with bowel cancer and was himself unaware of illness till near the end.Chamberlain died on 9 November 1940 at the age of 71.
During 1940 he had influence within Government as he chaired the War Cabinet during Churchill's many absences on negotiations with Germany,who wished a peace could be found with Britain and France.
We waged war against Germany with bombing and invasion across the border in the Saar campaign.
Hess was a man on a mission to bring peace......On May 10th he flew to Scotland in a desperate attempt to broker peace.Churchill had him locked up and silenced as he could have aided a plea for peace.This would not have suited Churchill at all.We forced Hitler to attack and quell what he saw as a mouse in a trap.A bad estimation of a dangerous enemy.This was why war was 'unavoidable'.
Chamberlain had long enjoyed excellent health, except for occasional attacks of gout,[55] but by July 1940, he was in almost constant pain. He sought treatment, and later that month entered hospital for surgery. Surgeons discovered that he was suffering from terminal bowel cancer, but they concealed it from him, telling him that he would not require further surgery.[203] Chamberlain left the nursing home where he was staying for Highfield Park in Hampshire, and resumed work in mid-August. He returned to his office on 9 September. However, renewed pain, compounded by the night-time bombing of London, which forced him to go to an air raid shelter and denied him rest, sapped his energy, and he left London for the last time on 19 September, returning to Highfield Park.[204] He proffered his resignation to Churchill on 22 September, which the Prime Minister was initially reluctant to accept. However, as both men realised that Chamberlain would never return to work, Churchill finally allowed him to resign. The Prime Minister asked if Chamberlain would accept the highest order of British chivalry, the Order of the Garter, of which his brother had been a member. Chamberlain refused, stating that he would "prefer to die plain 'Mr. Chamberlain' like my father before me, unadorned by any title".[205]
In the short time remaining to him, Chamberlain was angered by the "short, cold & for the most part deprecatory" press comments on his retirement, according to him written "without the slightest sign of sympathy for the man or even any comprehension that there may be a human tragedy in the background".[205] However, the King and Queen drove down from Windsor to visit the dying man on 14 October.[206] He received hundreds of sympathetic letters from friends and supporters. He wrote to John Simon, who had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Chamberlain's government:
So Churchill wrote his epitaph and took us on into war without mercy for the Hun.
Though some Chamberlain supporters found Churchill's oratory to be faint praise of the late Prime Minister,[209] Churchill added less publicly, "Whatever shall I do without poor Neville? I was relying on him to look after the Home Front for me."[210] Amongst the others who paid tribute to Chamberlain in the Commons and in the House of Lords on 12 November were Lord Halifax, Attlee, and the Liberal Party leader and Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair. Lloyd George, the only former Prime Minister remaining in the Commons, had been expected to speak, but absented himself from the proceedings.[211]
Chamberlain's cabinet voted us into a war against Germany which we would wage to total destruction.
Churchill wrote our history and it has been widely accepted as fact.We could have gone down a very different route if it were not for Chamberlain and his policies leading us up to and into war.
WW2 and it's results was the legacy created by both Chamberlain's Government and Hitler.We should take responsibility for the way we dealt with Germany.